La-5

Fighter

Lavochkin

The La-5 from the 302-nd Division (the Wing it is not known), July, 1943.

During modification LaGG-3 designers have oriented by a new perspective motor ASh-82 (M-82) of air cooling (designer A.D. Shvetsov). Due to its much greater power in comparison with fighter LaGG-3 has got those qualities which to it so lacked: speed and a rate of climb has essentially increased, the vertical manoeuvrability has improved. The new airplane has been created by spring of 1942 and after tests of it, under mark of La-5, have immediately mass-produced. The first fighters La-5 have appeared under Stalingrad, at the autumn of 1942.

The La-5 has quickly won a recognition. To pilots liked not only its high performances and high-power armament (two 20-mm ShVAK cannon), but also a motor of air cooling which had the big reliability, than a motor of liquid cooling, and simultaneously was protection against a fire of the opponent from a forward hemisphere.